Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also want to thank the Indigenous governments for their input into this work that the special committee's been doing. I believe in my own opinion that the report is very fair and a balanced report. So I thank the committee. Good work, committee.

The work of the committee actually, I think, validated a lot of the concerns that I was hearing previously to the committee as well. I do also want to recognize the MLA for Boot Lake -- Twin Lakes, Twin Lakes actually. Not the MLA for Twin Lakes. I'd like to thank her husband who first brought the idea of the core principle and objectives as an issue to my attention. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do that because he's not here but if so, I apologize and thank the MLA. And that was the start of it. And then I heard from other Indigenous governments that I had met with that the core principles and objectives were an issue as well. The work of the committee reinforced that. So it was an easy win. If that's major -- and that was one of the major stumbling blocks. If that's a major stumbling block, you know, I think that taking it out, all of Cabinet discussed that, the land claims, the self-government are actually an all of Cabinet, not just my own. So we discussed it all, and we all agreed that it was something that we could take out. So we did that.

The other major thing that I had heard in negotiations is the confusion around negotiators not having mandates, and yet we have mandates. I remember getting asked in the House here what is the mandate of self-governments, and I said I'd have to review it again. And the reality is that it's a big package. In fact, there's a summary of the mandates that I tabled today but it's even more comprehensive. It goes into every single area of services. So hopefully by making -- one of the committees was about transparency, one of the recommendations. Hopefully by making the negotiating mandates public will also assist in negotiations.

Now, I know that there's going to be some feedback from there and some contention, because that's how nothing gets without. So I am hopeful that all MLAs have that. I don't know if it would come through a committee or if it would come through special committee; I'm not sure, but I really would appreciate feedback from the Members. If you could send it to me in writing, I'd appreciate that. We're also in the process of we've also released this stuff to the Indigenous governments. So hopefully they will provide feedback. And then we'll be looking at it again.

As for the slow pace of negotiations, I do think that a couple of things, like I said, the CPOs was a real stumbling block for at least one Indigenous government. So hopefully it will get faster. But I've always said you can't push these things. We want them to get done. But the Indigenous governments have different priorities. And so it's respectful -- we have to respect and do it on their time, in fairness.

I know that another thing that within the agreements that people talked about was the legal certainty. I think that that's important. That's not one I'm willing to look at too closely right at this point because we had agreements that were very legalese in that you couldn't understand what they were saying. So I'm all about clarity. I want to make sure that these agreements are clear, that there's not the contention that comes after and says well, this isn't what I understood. I want to make sure people are understanding on all sides, three sides.

As for the comment that was made about, you know, is it hills to die on? There's two kinds of Indigenous governments. There's exclusive Indigenous governments, which only serves -- provides services to their Members, no one else. Tlicho people, I believe are part of that. And then there's other that are looking for inclusive, and that would mean that anyone -- all the services would be provided to any person whether they're their members or nonmembers of the Indigenous government. So we have flexibility around that but we also have to make sure that we abide by the Canadian Constitution. Things like freedom of mobility for access to services. I would hate to see somebody that's not -- non-Indigenous in the community that is Indigenous and not be allowed to get health care or income support or education or their children, those kind of benefits. So we do have -- some things we do have to be a little bit more firm on just to make sure that everyone has the same. But we're open to working with the Indigenous governments. Again, I really thank the Indigenous governments for their input. And I thank committee. I know sometimes I could be a thorn. Imagine if I was on the other side. But the reality is by listening and being open to things and challenging ourselves is how we provide the best services to people.

So I'm looking forward to the next year and a half and what we can get done. But I am grateful for the work.

I also want to say before we go there, there are things -- like, I know that -- it's easy to say at first -- like, I did that too with each mandate part and say well, maybe it's not a hill to die on, for example, the MVRMA -- or the Mackenzie Valley Land and Resource Act. That may not seem important, but we have the southeast corner where Indigenous governments from other communities are wanting to come in to our territory land claims and they want to do their own. So it's by having our Mackenzie Valley Land and Resource Act that protects the Indigenous governments here to be able to have a say on the land and water. So with each one, there's a reason for it. I'm more than willing to provide -- I think I offered that to standing committee if they would like a further technical briefing, I would be more than willing to provide that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.